TTAB mediated synthesis of Meso-H-BEA and its application in the production of n-butyl levulinate

The present work is focusing on the improvement of catalytic characteristics of zeolite. In the present endeavor, zeolite H-BEA has been modified using sol-gel route by making use of tetradecyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (TTAB) surfactant as a structure directing agent. The synthesized mesozeolite was characterized by SEM, HRTEM, Si-29 and (27)A1 MAS-NMR, small and wide-angle XRD, FT-IR, TGA, NH3-TPD, ICP-OES and BET surface area analysis. The synthesized material was found to exhibit mesoporosity along with microporosity of parent HBEA. The utility of modified H-BEA as heterogeneous catalyst was demonstrated in the production of value added chemical, n-butyl levulinate from biomass derived feedstock, levulinic acid (LA) via esterification reaction. n-butyl levulinate is one of the significant industrial chemical and has wide use as plasticizing agent, solvent and odorous substance. Various process variables such as molar ratio (LA to n-butanol), catalyst concentration (%) and reaction time (h) were optimized by response surface methodology (RSM), using the Box-Behnken Design (BBD). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) has been performed to investigate the suitability and significance of the quadratic model.